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Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonor'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away

To meet the Sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that bubbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping woful wan, like one forlorn,

Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the 'custom'd hill, Along the heath and near his favorite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he: "The next with dirges due in sad array

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

HERE rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send :
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear;
He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a
friend.

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE. Φωνᾶνα συνελοῖσιν· ἐς Δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων χαλίζει. Pindar. Olym. ii.

I.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take;
The laughing flowers that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:

The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the roar

Oh! sovereign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen cares,

And frantic passions, hear thy soft control:
On Thracia's hills the lord of war
Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command:
Perching on the scepter'd hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay,
O'er Idalia's velvet-green
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen,
On Cytherea's day,

With antic sports and blue-ey'd pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow-melting strains their queen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay,
With arts sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way:
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.

II.

Man's feeble race what ills await,
Labor and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky:
Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of

war.

In climes beyond the solar road,

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;
Of Horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

Nor second he,† that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble, while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of Glory bare

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding
pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-ey'd Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictur'd urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
But ah! 'tis heard no more-

Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, Through the azure deep of air:

The Muse has broke the twilight gloom

To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the odorous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,

How do your tuneful Echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around:
Every shade and hallow'd fountain

Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:
Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,

Left their Parnassus, for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant-power,
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

III.

Far from the Sun and summer-gale,

In thy green lap was Nature's darling* laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

To him the mighty mother did unveil

Her awful face: the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.

"This pencil take," she said, "whose colors clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

* Shakspeare.

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the Sun:
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,

And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of Spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think

(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)
How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care:

The panting herds repose:

Yet hark, how through the peopled air

The busy murmur glows!

† Milton.

Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.

The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim,
Quick-glancing to the Sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man:

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colors drest:
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance;
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply;

"Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown:
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-
We frolic while 'tis May."

ODE FOR MUSIC.

PERFORMED IN THE SENATE-HOUSE AT CAMBRIDGE, JULY 1, 1769, AT THE INSTALLATION OF HIS GRACE AUGUSTUS-HENRY FITZROY, DUKE OF GRAFTON, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY.

"HENCE, avaunt, ('tis holy ground,)
Comus and his midnight-crew,
And Ignorance with looks profound,
And dreaming Sloth of pallid hue,
Mad Sedition's cry profane,

Servitude that hugs her chain,
Nor in these consecrated bowers

Ye brown o'er-arching groves, That Contemplation loves,

Where willowy Camus lingers with delight! Oft at the blush of dawn

I trod your level lawn,

Oft woo'd the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright
In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly,
With Freedom by my side, and soft-ey'd Melan-
choly."

But hark! the portals sound, and pacing forth
With solemn steps and slow,

High potentates and dames of royal birth,
And mitred fathers, in long order go:
Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow,
From haughty Gallia torn,

And sad Chatillon,† on her bridal morn

That wept her bleeding love, and princely Clare,
And Anjou's heroine, and the paler rose,
The rival of her crown and of her woes,
And either Henry¶ there,

The murder'd saint, and the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome.
(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er,
Their human passions now no more,
Save Charity, that glows beyond the tomb,)
All that on Granta's fruitful plain
Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd,
And bade these awful fanes and turrets rise,
To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come;
And thus they speak in soft accord
The liquid language of the skies.

"What is grandeur, what is power?
Heavier toil, superior pain.
What the bright reward we gain?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasure's sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of Gratitude."

*Edward the Third; who added the fleur-de-lis of France to the arms of England. He founded Trinity College.

† Mary de Valentia, Countess of Pembroke, daughter

Let painted Flattery hide her serpent-train in flowers. of Guy de Chatillon, Comte de St. Paul in France: of

Nor Envy base, nor creeping Gain,

Dare the Muse's walk to stain,

While bright-ey'd Science watches round: Hence, away, 'tis holy ground!"

From yonder realms of empyrean day

Bursts on my ear th' indignant lay:

There sit the sainted sage, the bard divine,
The few, whom genius gave to shine

Through every unborn age and undiscover'd clime.
Rapt in celestial transport they,

Yet hither oft a glance from high
They send of tender sympathy

To bless the place, where on their opening soul
First the genuine ardor stole.

"Twas Milton struck the deep-ton'd shell,
And, as the choral warblings round him swell,
Meek Newton's self bends from his state sublime,
And nods his hoary head, and listens to the rhyme.

whom tradition says, that her husband, Audemar de Valentia, Earl of Pembroke, was slain at a tournament on the day of his nuptials. She was the foundress of Pembroke College or Hall, under the name of Aula Maria de Valentia.

Elizabeth de Burg, Countess of Clare, was wife of John de Burg, son and heir of the Earl of Ulster, and daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, by Joan of Acres, daughter of Edward the First. Hence the poet gives her the epithet of princely. She founded Clare-Hall.

§ Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry the Sixth, foundress of Queen's College. The poet had celebrated her con jugal fidelity in a former ode.

Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward the Fourth (hence called the paler rose, as being of the house of York.) She added to the foundation of Margaret of Anjou.

T Henry the Sixth and Eighth. The former the founder of King's, the latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity College.

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Her conscious tail her joy declar'd; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and purr'd applause..

Still had she gaz'd; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

* Countess of Richmond and Derby; the mother of Henry the Seventh, foundress of St. John's and Christ's Colleges.

The Countess was a Beaufort, and married to a Tudor; hence the application of this line to the Duke of Grafton, who claims descent from both these families.

↑ Lord-treasurer Burleigh was chancellor of the University in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

ODE

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE "Ανθρωπος· ἱκανὴ πρόφασις εἰς τὸ δυσυχεῖν. Menander.

YE distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.

Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ah, fields belov'd in vain,

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring.

Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green

The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?

The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

§ King Henry the Sixth, founder of the college.

While some on earnest business bent

Their murmuring labors ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty;
Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed,

Less pleasing, when possest; The tear forgot as soon as shed,

The sun-shine of the breast; Their buxom health, of rosy hue; Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer of vigor born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,

The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.
Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train. Ah, show them where in ambush stand To seize their prey, the murderous band! Ah, tell them, they are men!

These sha. the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;

Or pining Love, shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow; And keen Remorse, with blood defil'd, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every laboring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their Paradise
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
"Tis folly to be wise.

THE BARD.

A PINDARIC ODE.

I.

"RUIN seize thee, ruthless king!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds, that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glo'stert stood aghast in speechless trance:
To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiver
ing lance.

On a rock, whose haughty brow

Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of woe,

With haggard eyes the poet stood;

(Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air,)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

"Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave,
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!

O'er thee, oh king! their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,

To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hush'd the stormy main;

Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains, ye mourn in vain

Modred, whose magic song

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head. On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,

Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale:

Far. far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail :
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.

Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries—

*The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion.

† Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Glouces ter and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward.

Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore.

§ The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the Isle of Anglesea.

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